Thanksgiving Coffee Company

There’s been a lot of attention recently to the international food crisis. Suddenly, it seems, we’re recognizing that even after decades of work on the issue, the most fundamental human right is still out of reach for hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s becoming apparent that the consequences of climate change and population growth are creating some very difficult problems, and that these combine with a host of other political, economic, and ecological challenges to create complex and urgent crisis: people are hungry, and food security for a significant number of the world’s population is a long way off. In the last couple of days, a lot of attention has been put on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) gathering in Rome. Much of the attention has been on a variety of side issues, including the extravagant menu offered to the government officials and dignitaries gathered, and on the continued abuse of power by Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president (if that’s a word I can use to describe his role, which is clearly that of a dictator).

Rising food costs directly effect the farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. Though most grow a significant portion of their own food on their farms (along with their coffee), many buy some percentage of their food, especially grains (either wheat bread or rice) in town. Rising costs make it difficult for the farmers to feed their families, and spread their earnings from coffee all too thin. Underneath this challenge though, is a situation many decades in the making: for years, coffee has been the only lucrative crop, so farmers have invested in coffee, and moved away from growing food. But though their incomes have increased, their ability to provide for their family with the extra money their earning is starting to decline. It’s been two steps forward, and now a step backward.

How did this happen?

We could spend a lot of time pointing fingers, and the truth is that there are more guilty parties than we can count. Failed UN efforts, corruption, war, climate change, and the collapse of stable markets are just a few of the leading suspects. What’s clear is that prioritizing the needs of farmers and their families has long since lost traction in the world’s circles of power. Large-scale solutions such as liberalizing government policy (ie privatizing and reducing trade barriers) have exposed farmers to the hardest-hitting competition in the world, and as one would expect, the big guys win pretty quickly. A Ugandan farmer trying to make a profit on her surplus corn is in a bad way when she is selling to a market that’s controlled by giant American multinationals, and supplied by giant industrialized farms in the US cornbelt that are heavily subsidized by American tax dollars. So, for farmers like the 754 members of Peace Kawomera, the last 20 years have seen a decline in crop prices, which means three things: one, it’s harder to make a living growing food, two, it’s cheaper to buy food, it makes more sense to grow cash crops like coffee, which don’t face competition from subsidized production elsewhere.

This, for many economists, is a good thing. Specialization (those who grow corn best grow corn, those who don’t shouldn’t) should calibrate the economy towards efficiency. Farmers in Uganda should grow coffee, and sell it to farmers in Iowa who grow corn, and visa-versa. Farmers took this philosophical and economic bait and ate it too (who wouldn’t, it’s a rational choice considering the options—work to grow crops to sell and then make very little money, or give up those crops and buy food at the new cheap prices). As food got cheaper, farmers started to grow less, and buy more. But then things changed. Food prices have skyrocketed, and now, farmers are faced with food prices that are beyond their means.

The UN’s recent call to action is a dramatic attempt to stave off disaster. In the short term, it may be necessary, but it’s not a long-term solution to the deepening problem, which is only exacerbated by population growth, climate change, and economic tremors caused by the challenge of peak oil.

It’s worth rewinding a few weeks in the news, to the attempted passage of the US Farm Bill.The Economist weighed in on the absurdity of some of the Farm Bill’s most notorious features (not only continuing a lavish subsidy program, but tying future subsidy levels to today’s record commodity prices), and others, like The Center for Ecoliteracy, have worked to draw the connection between the bill, farming, health, and the impact on our local food systems. What’s important to note here though, is that the farm bill is at the root of the hunger crisis now facing farmers around the world. In the US especially, but also in Europe, farm subsidies support the business of farming locally, but prop up an unsustainable commodity production, dramatically distort prices, and create a surplus of really cheap food. This food then travels the world, and finds its way untaxed into local markets, where it arrives at low prices, often undercutting the ability of local farmers to compete and make a profit. This is an important piece of the puzzle: the reduction of trade barriers in the third world and increased subsidies in the first world flood local markets and combine to dramatically alter the economy of farming and the social web of food production.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the paradigm itself is unsustainable. It’s not going to work to overproduce food, and ship it from one side of the world to the other. For a while, that seemed logical, at least on some economic grounds. But now, the cost of that model has increased to the point where it’s clearly broken. Farmers are stuck in the midst of a situation that they did not create, and struggling to get by. It’s past time to envision and work towards a different paradigm, one that prioritizes the needs of farmers and their families, and understands that this is the only basis from which to build a strong and sustainable global economy. Henry Saragih, International Coordinator for Via Campesina, has written a subtle but provocative letter that hints at what this new direction might look like.

In the meantime, the farmers of Peace Kawomera are working to build a stable market for their coffee, which helps to bring some economic security to their families. The Cooperative is working on helping the farmers develop their coffee production, and balance cash-cropping with food production. It’s going to be a long journey together, but our hope is that by doing our part we can work to establish a model that works for farmers and their families—both because coffee, which is and should be a viable cash crop is now profitable, and because farmers can use these earnings and the cooperative’s support to return to food production, and achieve a healthy balance in their farming between feeding their families and earning money to pay for the other necessities of life.

From the UN summit in Rome to the floor of the US congress, and all the way to the slopes of Mt. Elgon in Uganda, the challenge of our time is weaving together a globalized economy that works for everyone, now, and in the future. Should we be surprised to learn that it’s all connected, that just like an ecosystem, one change creates another, and a challenge one place is simultaneously a challenge somewhere else?

This entry was posted by BCM on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am and is filed under In the News, Sharing with you.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.